11/10/2018

Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk: How to build a good VN


Here it is, dear fellow gamers: the last 'Summer of Mystery' instalment, and probably the meatiest as well. Ashen Hawk is similar to Black Butterfly: a Choose Your Own Adventure type of VN, with plenty of branching paths and no active romancing. And as the title implies, it's really good. In fact, it's one of the best VNs I've read, with a stellar build-up and sky-high production values. Here's how PAH manages to be the cream of the crop of otome VNs:


— The leading lady is a genuinely deep character and not a mere placeholder for the player. Forget about your usual mute, nondescript otome heroine: Jed is the story's main focus through and through, and her personality and interactions with the rest of the cast are lovingly detailed and get tons of screen time. She's also fully voiced, and we get to see her 'act' on the screen instead of merely seing her portrait in a corner of the dialogue box.


— NOT every single male in sight is a love interest, and the leading lady has interactions with other people beyond her potential lovers. All too often, otome VNs create some sort of love bubble that solely contains the heroine and her beaus, as though the rest of the world had simply evaporated. If you're lucky, you get one or two female friends, a baby brother or a bunch of comic relief sidekicks; but there's never any doubt about the fact that those extra characters are mere side dishes. Not so in PAH: not only is a good half of the male cast out of Jed's romantic reach, but she also entertains all sorts of relationships with all sorts of characters, from superficial friendliness to deep filial love.  


PAH is a gorgeous case of 'Show, don't tell'. The game sports plenty of character interactions that give us a good feel of the cast' personalities and relationships, but also allow us to discover the game world and its stakes. PAH really takes the time to establish its lore and atmosphere which, incidentally, led a number of reviewers to deem the story too lengthy and drawn-out. It's a matter of taste, I guess: as far as I'm concerned, I totally lapped up PAH's long exposition and patient world-building. 


PAH is blessed with the Greatest Art of Them All, a splendid display of drawing mastery that enhances the atmosphere and makes us love the cast even more. I honestly don't think I've ever taken that many screenshots in a VN heck, every single cutscene called for a screen capture! Not only that, but the chara design is also stupendously gorgeous, with lovely outfits, stylish aircuts and lovingly detailed facial expressions. I deem Lavan the Best Otome Beau Ever as far as looks are concerned: not only does he genuinely look like the young adult he's supposed to be, but he's so ridiculously hunky that he manages to pull off a mullet and make it look darn sexy. 
 

PAH is rife with erotic and romantic tension despite its tricky cross-dressing setting. Mind you, this was quite the tall order: having an heroine pose as a male was not exactly the ideal setting to create a sultry atmosphere, and I wondered how the game was going to pull the whole thing off. The answer is: darn well. I won't tread too much on spoiler territory, but suffice to say that the writers found plenty of clever little ways to sneak in steamy moments without requiring any major suspension of disbelief from the player. Cherry on the cake, eroticism stems from different settings depending on the involved beau (spoilers!): Lavan knows that Jed is a woman yet uses Jed's male act to get physically close to her without looking like a pervert, while Lugus falls in love with the double cross-dressing female version of Jed upon a misunderstanding; as for Levi, he loves Jed regardless of her sex and is thus deeply troubled by any physical closeness or mark of affection from her. (End of spoilers)


As dazzling a VN as PAH is, it unfortunately doesn't manage to be dazzling all the way through. Somewhere around the two-third mark, things subtly start going astray; and in a matter of chapters, PAH squanders its amazing potential and fizzles out, going from a brilliant VN to a merely decent one. Let's meet again soon for the story of that demise, dear fellow gamers; until then, thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!

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